[Midweek edition] Ultra-brief Review: LIVING BEYOND WAR
An Ultra-brief review of
Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide
by Winslow Myers.
Paperback: Orbis Books, 2009.
Buy Now: [ Amazon ]
Reviewed by Chris Smith.
Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide by Winslow Myers is a fine book that challenges us to imagine a world without war. About half the book is a critique of war and the second half implores us to live differently in order that war might cease. This second half offers us perhaps the finest chapter in the volume, on “the power of dialogue,” which explains how conversation can begin to move us beyond the vices that lead to war — impatience, fear, assumptions, etc. While this book might serve well to promote inter-faith cooperation toward a peaceful world, it seems that LIVING BEYOND WAR might be more confusing than it is helpful for audiences among Christ’s followers, for our fundamental calling as churches is not to abolish war, but rather to live together as locally-rooted communities shaped by the peace of Christ. Certainly, we believe that God is reconciling all things and will one day abolish war, but the task that we have been charged with is faithfulness together in the way of Christ, not the elimination of war.
